I don’t think it’s about trusting authority or not, it’s about how you construct a consistent model of the world and deal with conflicting bits of information.

I don’t think it’s about trusting authority or not, it’s about how you construct a consistent model of the world and deal with conflicting bits of information. There’s a willingness in some people to consider some grand conspiracy is lying for complex reasons without considering the possibility that the person talking about it is lying to you or just mistaken for mundane reasons. Perhaps the medical establishment lying to you, or it’s the guy trying to sell you healing crystals. Other times it’s more subtle conflict such as the ‘healing power of touch’ vs ‘touch fulfilling a physiological need’ where it’s easy to exaggerate a subtle misunderstanding to a wildly inaccurate idea.